Tuesday, May 14, 2013

New Android head says 'It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system'

Newly-appointed Android head Sundar Pichai says the company will focus on "all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers" at this year's Google I/O conference, due to begin this Wednesday. In an interview with Wired, Pichai, who also heads up Google Chrome, says that it isn't a time when the company has "much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system," suggesting major device launches won't be the focus of the conference.

Having recently taken over from Android co-founder Andy Rubin, Pichai offered his thoughts on a variety of subjects, including Android updates, Google's relationship with Samsung, Facebook Home and the challenges of managing two operating systems.

Some bite-size snippets --

On the relationship between Chrome and Android: "Android and Chrome are both large, open platforms, growing very fast. I think that they will play a strong role, not merely exist. I see this as part of friendly innovation and choice for both users and developers."

On Facebook Home: "It’s exciting that Facebook thought of Android first in this case. Android was intended to be very customizable. And we welcome innovations. As for the specific product, my personal take on it is that time will tell."

On Samsung's Android dominance: "The relationship is very strong on a day-to-day basis and on a tactical basis. So I’m not that concerned. Historically the industry has had long stable structures. Look at Microsoft and Intel. They were very codependent on one another, but it served both of them well."

On future Nexus hardware: "You will see a continuation of what we have tried to do with Nexus and Chromebooks. Any hardware projects we do will be to push the ecosystem forward."

On slow Android updates: "We are thinking about how to make Android handle updates better. We see ways we can do this. It’s early days. We’re talking with our partners and working our way through it. We need time to figure out the mechanics, but it’s definitely an area of focus for me and for the team."

On what to expect from I/O this year: "Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms."